#130. Scary, Unknown & Unexplained
01:16:27 Share

Something just really obvious just came to me. And I can't believe that it took us recording a whole episode for me to fucking realize. We're not drinking! Oh my, that's why it fell off.

I knew... Oh, my God. We didn't drink. We are so rusty. We are the honest drink, and we did not drink. We didn't even think about drinking. We totally forgot the whole tradition here. What blows my mind is thinking about the topics that we talked about. Like...

We were talking about UFOs and shit like that. That goes hand in hand with drinking wine. Exactly. If we had a drink in our hand and we were slowly getting drunk and we were talking about multidimensionality and all this other crazy cookie shit. Yeah, man. Wow. Okay. We are totally off our game. We're in a new studio. Our last one had a massive water leak, so we've been setting up. So forgive our long absence yet again. Let's roll into it. Let's roll into it. All right. Here we go. I just roll and whistle.

Me, me.

Why did you say, like, I hope nothing happened to Eric? I don't know. My mind just went to the worst place, you know? Because my mind didn't go there. I was just thinking he was being flighty. He can be like that. But usually, I mean, it's been a long time. It's what time is it now? It's 3 o'clock. We're supposed to meet at 1. At 1.30, he texted if we're at the studio. We replied. And now it's 3 o'clock and he's not answering. Because you replied. He said, anyone at the studio? And you replied, okay.

So I can picture him... Just like throwing a tantrum? If he's in a bad mood, right? Because you know when he gets in a bad mood, he gets very sensitive. But I meant to do like this thing, like the okay hand signal.

You know what I'm saying? Like, oh, you guys at the studio, okay hand signal means, boom, we're good to go, right? So if he even took it that way, I mean, that's ridiculous. That'd be super immature. But now I'm getting a little nervous because you planted that seed of... Is he okay? Well, he's not picking up his phone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's two hours past our meeting time. We can't reach him. We don't know. So my mind just like, you know, automatically was just like, what if? Hope he's okay. I don't know. All right. Well, let's... So it's like a weird... Let's move on.

All right. So we haven't done this in a while. We haven't sat down and just shot the shit. Yeah. A couple of things. We've moved into a new studio again. Our last one had a massive water leak. So we've been taking all this time to move. And it's been a really slow process getting this set up. And I mean, the kids, we have kids now too. That's a big new thing as well. So yeah, man, we haven't recorded in a while. We need to start recording again.

I feel good. I feel good. I feel like now that we're moved in, obviously we're still finishing the interior decoration, hence being on an audio podcast this time. But we're on the right track because I think we are all happy with this new studio, at least the potential of what it's going to become.

And we are taking things a little more seriously in terms of the way we're communicating with each other on the future, rolling out future episodes, how to become better, how to treat the different platforms with more respect. Yeah, we're trying to work also more towards the video as well, include video. We started a Xiaohongsu account so you can catch like old short clips there. I don't know. We're just trying to take the whole thing a little more seriously. So it's been taking a little more time to kind of... It took us a long time. We've been doing this for a couple of years now. Come on. Yeah.

For some reason now we choose... I mean, this iteration is also taking a while because like all these things are like, we want to like do it right. So we're trying to like refigure out the whole podcast, how we're going to do it. More of the production of it, you know, I mean, the topics and what we talk about is all going to probably be the same. So yeah. I think the production in terms of how do we make it better for not only ourselves, but for the listeners. I

I think, okay, here it is. One of the reasons why we have been starting to take it a lot more seriously recently is because our fan base has been growing. So we have a bit of a small, modest fan base, but very happy to have them. And now we're trying to continue that momentum, like I keep saying before.

and make sure that we're offering the best content possible for everybody. So like, look, this is the honest drink. We're calling ourselves out. We need to call ourselves out on this. And in private, off air, we've been talking about this. So this is what's really been bothering me. Well, the one good thing that I'm holding on to is that

Compared to previous declarations of promises and improvement, we are actually having conversations constantly as opposed to in the past where we have one meeting, we get all excited, and then we start making these empty promises and announcements. I think the smartest way to go here is... Shut the fuck up and just do it. Yeah, shut the fuck up.

will show by doing instead of talking about it. Thank you for reminding me. So that's one of the things that I would like to say out loud. Maybe I've said this before, but...

One of the clearest memories I have growing up with my older sister who one time said to me that I'll never forget is I feel like it's the first life advice I ever got because that's why it resonated and it's stuck in my head to this day. I feel like I was around 13 years old and one time she sat me down and I think I was very talkative or something. I was just bullshitting or something. I don't know what it was.

But she sat me down and she says, Howie, if there's one thing that you need to learn is don't talk unless A, you know what you're talking about or two, you can back it up. Otherwise, shut the fuck up.

And I'm like, okay. You know what I mean? And it was one of those things that I still remember to this day. And I don't really practice it that well sometimes, but it's always lingering in the back of my mind. A lot of times I prevent myself from talking too much, especially if it's on a topic that I don't know enough about. But yeah, that's one of the things that resonated with me. I don't know. That's a tricky one because I feel like you and Eric are always kind of of that mindset, right?

Like you guys don't want to talk about anything you guys like just aren't like quote unquote experts on. Mm hmm.

And I feel that impedes the kind of freedom we have on this show in terms of just like speaking our minds sometimes. And I'm kind of sitting a little bit on the opposite end of the spectrum. Well, no, I just feel like we can talk. And because everything is already understood, like these are our opinions. We're not like trying to educate anybody on anything, right? You're like a broken dam and the water is just lost. Just diarrhea spewing out of my mouth. No, I mean, I don't know. I think there's a good balance of that.

And I think in life, we shouldn't muzzle ourselves too much because we're not quote unquote experts. And I feel as long as like, I think it depends on how you're talking about it. If you're just asking questions, if you're just sharing your opinions, knowing that those opinions are not fully formed and you want a conversation around it, right? And through conversation, maybe you can learn something. I think that's totally fine.

I don't think you have to just not engage in a conversation about something if you're not an expert on it. Then I don't think you'll really learn anything.

Well, it depends on if you have somebody. Okay, if both of us are talking about, I guess, the aftermath of... Well, the... What's going on right now with quantum engineering? The... Quantum computing? Yeah, well, not just computing. Well, let me tell you about quantum computing, Ali. What I'm trying to say is that... Let me educate you. Like, both of us are talking about quantum computing and quantum engineering as if...

But we would never do that because we don't know. But there's headlines going on. Yeah, but we would talk about the headlines. We would ask questions. But none of us are able to dive deeper into it. So why bring it up? Because it could be a fun conversation of curiosity. I don't know. I think this idea of like stifling a curious mind of...

of wanting to have a conversation around something and ask questions and just explore potential questions around those things. I mean, I don't see anything wrong with that. Yeah, sure. No, I get it. I get it. No, for example, what if me and you wanted to have a conversation, and we do because we've talked about this off air before, we want to talk about UFOs. We want to talk about aliens. Sure, but there's... No one knows anything about aliens.

So what, no one should ever talk about that? No, okay, yes. You can talk about it, but it's one of those things that it's a lot based off of your own personal beliefs, theories, because nothing has come out. There's no facts that have come out so far, unless, well, it's questionable. No, I've been listening to some podcasts lately. Stop it. No, I swear, I swear, I really have. Are you going down the UFO bubble?

See, now, okay, how do I put this? Because I am very extremely aware that to some people, I might come across as going down an entire conspiracy theory rabbit hole. I'm very aware of that fact. But at what point does enough evidence accumulate where the topic should be taken out of the conspiracy theory bucket?

and just be a conversation, right? It doesn't mean it's true, but why does everything around that subject have to be labeled like, oh, that's conspiracy theory, that's conspiracy. But like, if you think about it, if you actually look into it, like a lot of really crazy things from a lot of really credible people have been happening lately. And I don't know, it's pretty hardcore evidence. Okay. If I had a sound effect and if I had like a fake stamp, I would like ramp a stamp onto this audio podcast right now. I'd be like,

The Honest Street UFO episode starting now. But I don't know. It's pretty crazy. It's pretty crazy what's happening right now. The only reason why I just said that is because I went down that rabbit hole a few weeks ago when David Grush first came out. And I definitely...

I definitely watch a lot of content surrounding that release and news around it. All of a sudden News Nation is popping up on my feed all the time. The Hill. Channels I don't watch. News outlets I don't really listen to. And I have no idea how credible they are until I started digging in and doing some research and being like, well, are they credible? Because I've never heard of them. Are they using this information?

as a sort of a platform to gain some traction, to gain some audience? Because who are they? No, well, if you... Okay, David Grush. Or Grush. Yeah, Grush or something like that. If you listen to other people, like well-respected people in the government, former cabinet members, things like that, there was this one episode...

I was listening to and it was a female and she's like a really high respected economist advisor to a lot of former presidents, even foreign prime ministers. And like this guy is for real. He is well respected within the community. He is legitimate. And for him to do this, this is actually a career killer. And if you think about, not even think about, but if you understand actually during the hearing, if you saw the people that he was surrounded by sitting behind him,

A lot of them are like real hardcore intelligence agency. Like they're basically like attorneys for intelligence agency people and presidents. They back people on like the most serious of cases.

And there were three that are very notable and well-respected in government historically. And all three of them were backing him, which means if they were to associate their names and their faces to the subject, there's something really serious going on. And the reason why a lot more people weren't coming up before was because of this thing called the, they had to form like the whistleblowers act or something like that to gain protection. Otherwise,

Without that, if you start talking about it, you can get locked up. - Yeah, it's against the law. - You go in front of a military tribunal and you'll get thrown in prison. So a lot of legal structure had to come into place for all this to start happening. And it's still ongoing. - Okay, so here's, let's establish a couple of things right now, because it's not like this is breaking news, right? This has been going on for about, I would say two to three months since the first interview got released. - Yeah. - I would say. - Okay.

And about maybe three weeks ago, they had the preliminary hearing with the House of Reps, right? Congress? Yeah, something like that. Right? That's the first time that it was officially... He was officially...

by people of the US government. And there are some things that he said that were quoted by many media outlets, such as when he was asked, basically, are there aliens? And he said, yes, non-human beings. Well, like, have you recovered craft? Yes. Have you recovered biologics, like wetware? Yes. Yes.

- Yeah. - And then he kept referring to something called the SCIF as well. He's like, I can give you more information if we're in a SCIF. And what a SCIF is, it's like a bubble where no recording devices outside of that can work. It's like this cage that you go in, right? And where it's absolute privacy. And he was saying he can name specific programs, he can give specific names, blah, blah, blah. My whole position is, I'm not saying like all this is real, but what I'm saying is enough has come out now

where it should be a legitimate conversation to have. Yeah, the SCIF is a Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility. And that's the only way that he's able to share things that are against the law, like he's not allowed to talk about, but he would be able to share information in the SCIF. Yeah. But he wasn't granted. He wasn't granted permission.

The Pentagon didn't allow permission. A lot of Congress people were trying to be like, okay, I'll go on a skiff with you, but they weren't allowed. So where are they trying to hide, Howie? Where are they trying to hide? What I'm trying to get at is there's a lot of back and forth in terms of, okay, what's next? What's coming up? They're trying to get more people to come out. They're trying to get the next round of information. Congress is trying to go to some of these places to find out places, meaning where they...

hold possible UAPs, getting access to that. But I don't know. I feel like it kind of lost steam a little bit. And a couple of things. One is mainstream media did not really pick it up. It was not really pushed out there on a daily basis.

Unlike the Hill and News Nation who seemed to like really pick it up and run with it. So they became the de facto source of this UAP hearings and David Grush. But mainstream media didn't really pick it up. You would see them on like, you know, little blurbs. You know what I mean? Which only raises my suspicion even more. It raises my suspicion even more. I mean, I know why, but...

Okay, look, the whole conversation around this thing, I want to make this clear. I'm not necessarily going into the whole like, oh, aliens are real realm. Okay. Although I'm not like closed off to that possibility at all.

But I think what this whole thing really brings out is number one, it's really two things that cannot be denied. Is one, there are unidentified flying objects out there. Now that doesn't mean they're aliens. It just means no one knows what they are. Or at least the pilots, the military, people, civilians, whoever, like politicians, we don't know what they are. They're out there because we see them. We've recorded them. They're there in plain sight, flimsy.

Frequently, you have pilots reporting this for years now, all the time. A lot of pilots afraid to speak out because they're afraid to lose like, you know, their piloting license or get kicked out of the army or whatever it is, right? So one thing that is undeniable, we have undeniable proof is there are unidentified craft out there in the airspace. We don't know what they are, okay? Now they could be human made, I don't know, but we just don't know. That's undeniable.

So let's find out what those things are, right? That's the curiosity. Number two is there are a little over a trillion dollars, I think, in the American system that's unaccounted for that the Pentagon doesn't have accounting for.

Like they don't know what this money, like that's still, that's part of the whole, like the David Grouch thing. Like the headline is about like aliens, but a big part of his whistleblowing is also about the money accountability. Where did all this money go? Like think about, like we can't even imagine how much money that is. And it's like, oops, where'd that go? So the assumption is that money is going into a lot of like black projects. It's like, think about the ocean.

You have the layer near the surface of the ocean that we can see. Like we can see, we can see fish swimming around. We can see coral. We can dive in there. We know what it's about. Then there's like a deeper layer, the submarine layer where like, we don't really, we don't see, we don't know. We don't really know what's going on, except we feel to take like a really deep submersible dive, which very few people are able to do. And that's like the government. And

And you have the visible layer, which we all know runs, you know, countries and the whole bureaucracy and all things, policy, things like that. And then there's a whole nother deeper submarine layer. Some people call it the deep state. Some people call it other things that exist that is just not visible.

And so we know a lot of money is probably being funneled towards the non-visible part. And along with this whole idea of UAPs, it just starts to kind of formulate a story and an image in your mind, whether it's true or not, that

There is something going on. And it's not just some crazy conspiracy theory or somebody trying to make a name for himself. Like there is literally a conspiracy happening. And that shouldn't be any surprise. I mean, I think in all of heart of hearts, like we know this kind of stuff happens, right? We just don't know.

- No, and we would never so much out loud want to associate that with aliens and stuff like that, right? Because that, the extent it becomes, starts getting a little nuts, but there's something happening. - I just wonder globally how it is for the citizens of different countries. Growing up in America, we grew up around UFO talk, correct?

between Roswell. It's like a cultural thing. Movies. It's cultural. Yeah. We grew up. Do you think it's uniquely American? I don't think so. Like the aliens are just visiting America. But that's why it just feels so strange. Even here, I asked a few Chinese people about UFOs. I was like,

Do you guys believe in UFOs? The general consensus is, yeah, there's probably some UFOs out there and there's some people here that are really into it, but no one talks about it. It's not a thing. So you can attribute that to maybe the way the country is run. But what about other places? What about how are people in Italy thinking about this?

How are people in South America thinking about this? Is it a real thing? I'm just so curious. It can't just be freaking the arrogance of Americans, which we kind of talked about with basketball before, but it's a true thing. It's a real thing.

Americans are arrogant, especially in the past 50 years or so. Well, they're saying it's a global phenomenon. It's just that I agree with you. It just doesn't seem so much as part of the pop culture in other places. But again, I haven't been everywhere. We could just be blind, right? We could just be blind. It's not like we're reading up on local news. Well, we know it's not so much of the pop culture in China, but that shouldn't be any surprise, right?

So I don't know. I don't know. Somebody was saying that there could be an explanation why. Truthfully, America is the de facto place where UFOs are visiting more compared to other countries. Part of it is because of nuclear reasons. There have been a lot of testaments of UFOs visiting or unidentified flying objects visiting nuclear plants.

in america and they seem to they tend to appear near nuclear facilities pretty often and one of the i guess theories is that they're trying to keep an eye on the human population because we have nuclear power which is quite destructive and it's actually aliens trying to keep us in check because it's like the one thing we have that they're like oh okay well maybe we should yeah that's something that should uh they should not be wielding that kind of power yeah

That's just something that... But that wouldn't explain why America then, because then you have other countries... Well, America started with... If you watch Oppenheimer... Oh, which I have not watched yet. I can't believe you watched it without me. I really want to watch it. But before we bounce around, because I don't want to go down there, but yes, of course, many other countries are on nuclear now. But what I'm saying is that because, historically speaking, first of all, we have the most facilities compared to all other nations.

And secondly, historically, Americans were closely linked to the creation of the atom bomb because of Oppenheimer. And that might be a reason why the whole Roswell started coming out after nuclear energy and nuclear power came into fruition. All of a sudden you have facilities start popping up where you have UFO testing sites, quote unquote, or secret bases and stuff like that.

Personally, I never thought about that sort of theory. I never really bought into it, but I did hear it. Yeah, I heard that. I feel like it was actually recently I heard it on... There's this podcast called Weaponized. One thing in particular that I personally was attracted to was, I believe in the News Nation interview, he was asked about pilots being found. And he said, yes, if there's a craft, there's a pilot there.

with a human and he said and he replied you know he can't answer it but then he basically said no

And then during the interview, he was asked, okay, so that means that we're not alone. That means there's aliens out there or something like that. And his response was something along the lines of, it's a lot closer than you think. He's basically saying yes. Yeah, but he's also saying it's a lot closer than you think. It's like, don't think out of space. Yeah. Whether that means in our backyard and the oceans and whatever. Well, no, he said like, we've recovered them. Yeah. But also- They are in our possession. But what I'm saying is that their existence, like where are they coming from? Right.

I want to try to get at is where are they coming from? And I forgot how he, how he worded it, but basically he alluded to these aliens or at least one type of alien existing in alternate planes or, you know, alternate universes. This is where we start getting, going off the rails. Off the rails. But that's what basically was, he was alluding to where we are, we cannot, with our minimal senses, we cannot sense aliens.

Yeah. Well, just like a two-dimensional creature cannot really sense a being that lives in the three dimensions. Yes. Well, I don't know how many dimensions math has proven can exist. I think it's like 90-something dimensions or something like that. Like mathematically, like theoretically, that can exist. Yeah.

Well, even the one time we had the guest, Jamie Dixon, and you guys were talking one time about what percentage of the electromagnetic spectrum are we able to see or understand or sense. And you were like, I don't know, 15, 20%? He's like, 0.00035%.

Yeah, it's crazy. It's crazy. We just, I mean, I know this is like kind of going off the rails, but like, I think we just need to have an open mind. And that's, that's all I'm saying. I'm just saying like, I'm just trying to keep an open mind about everything and not come to any conclusions one way or the other.

And just stay open-minded. Because we really don't know shit. We don't know anything. So let's not try to play around like we do. We don't. Anything is kind of possible. Do you think maybe that's what ghosts are? Yeah, I've thought about that all the time. I think ghosts... Oh, ghosts. Yeah. I was about to say, I've never really seen a ghost. But I feel like maybe I have.

What? You never told me that. What? I think I've shared these stories with you. Like, no, I've never like seen the ghost itself, but I feel like I've been around one. Okay. So I have two stories. One story directly happened to me. The other story was a very close friend of mine. So the first story is one day, this was when I was a younger teenager. I'm in my room. I'm doing my homework at my desk. It's at night.

On my head, I'm looking at the textbook. You did tell me the story. I did tell you this, right? The pencil. Yes. Yes. So I'm minding my own business, doing my homework. I'm alone in the room and my door is closed. And I'm looking down at the textbook that's on my desk. And all of a sudden, a pencil drops from above me onto the textbook.

Yeah, like right in front of me. And you're thinking, okay, maybe, you know, just rolled off a shelf and fell on. There is nothing above me. That's so freaky. There's nothing. It's an empty wall. There's nothing it can have fell from, you know?

Like there's nothing. There's nothing up there. My hair is rising on my arms. So to this day, I have no explanation for it. Hold on. You're sitting there. How old are you? I forget. Mid-teens. Okay. You're sitting there doing homework or whatever, right? Yeah. And all of a sudden, you're facing the wall. Yeah. I'm at my desk. The desk is facing the wall. Yeah, the desk is against the wall. Against the wall. Yeah. And all of a sudden, a pencil just drops in front of you. There's nothing above you.

And it's not like a light drop. Like, it dropped with the speed and force. Like, not the speed. It dropped with a force that it felt like it dropped from, like, a high place. Okay. You know? Hold on. And then what did you do? Like, because, like, the pencil kind of bounced, too. Okay. What did you do? Immediately. What did you do? I don't remember immediately what I did. I'm sure the first thing I did was look up. There's nothing up. It's just the ceiling. There's nothing up there. And... How did you...

睡腹自己? Like, how did you comfort yourself to know that you're okay? Just denial. Just like massive denial, like in the moment. Like, I was definitely remember being scared. And this is in your bedroom? Yeah, my bedroom. And I think I got up and I left my room for a while. And then, I don't know. You could still sleep there?

Yeah, yeah, I still slept there. Anything else happen? Not like that. Not that cannot be explained. Like other things have happened, but like I could explain it as like, oh, I was like half asleep already, you know. You know, things that could have a credible reason, like just a credible, like logical reason. Maybe you were half asleep when you were doing homework and you're like, all of a sudden you're like twirling a pencil or something. No, I don't twirl pencils. No, I was wide awake. I had a pen in my hand already, okay? Yeah.

No, this one was the only one that is like, I know what happened. That's exactly how it happened. And I cannot explain. Was it a pencil that you had in your room? Do you remember? I don't remember that. Or was it transported from some other dimension? I don't know. I'm just saying. I cannot explain. I'm not saying it was a ghost. I'm not saying anything. I don't have any conclusions about it. I'm just saying I still cannot explain it. Okay, that's freaky. Okay.

That's freaky. I believe you because you don't make up those kind of stuff. No, and it's like the only time that it's happened to me. Oh, actually, I have another one. But see, these are explainable. If you just started thinking about it, maybe, oh, maybe this, maybe that. The pencil one is the only one I can't explain. The other one is, I'm thinking of another one, not like my friend one is the really crazy one. I was in a hotel room once and I was young. I was with my family and we were staying in a hotel room.

And it was at the end of the hall, this hotel room. So it's like a really long hallway because it's like a big hotel. So it's like a really long straight hallway. And our room is like at the very end. So when you look out the peephole of the door, the hotel door, you can see all the way down the hotel. That's creepy enough. All the way down like the hallway. That's creepy enough. You know what I'm saying? So like perpendicular, right? So I can see all the way down the hallway. I'm picturing it right now. Out of the peephole. So.

So when I was young, I was like, I don't know, I was a kid. I was like looking out the peephole for some reason, right? I'm looking at the peephole and I'm like looking all the way down and I see this man like standing all the way at the end of the hallway, right? So he's like really far away and I'm like looking and I'm just like, you know, I'm people watching. I'm just a kid. I'm bored. I don't know. I'm just seeing what's out there.

And the man is like staring right at my door. Well, at least it seems like he's staring right at my door from really far distance. And then he starts running straight down the hallway. Like not a normal run, like, oh, like I'm late. I need to catch the elevator and get to my meeting, that kind of run. It's like...

Tom Cruise-ish Mission Impossible. Full power, full blast. Full sprint, full sprint, robot arms swinging, like full gait running. Like there's no reason for that to be occurring, you know? And he's full on sprint all the way down. And as he's getting closer and closer, I'm like, oh, like he can't be coming to our door. Like we're all at the end. Like he's probably going to be running. He's probably going to turn any second to the elevator. I don't know, right?

Full on sprint. He gets closer and closer and closer and gets almost to our door. I look away. I look back in the peephole. There's nothing there. No one in the hallway.

So, you know, those are... Well, you turn a corner. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that's one of those creepy ones that could be totally explained. But it's just like really weird because it just seems so out of place. It makes me think of some of these pranks that I've seen on TikTok where people do that in a hotel. Like they'll knock on the door and get people to open the door and then they basically run away and they stand at the end of the hallway. So when they look out, all of a sudden they see this one guy like looking out.

Yeah, no, but this guy would have no idea that I was looking out to people. I know, I know. You know, like how would he know I was looking out to people? Okay. All right. I think the pencil one is, I mean, that was creepy. I visualized it. It's pretty creepy. The pencil one is weird. Definitely weird. Let me share one with you and see what you say. So this is, I'm going back to childhood.

around six years old, I would share a room with my sister, my older sister. And, but the beds, our two beds were separated by about, I would say, two and a half, three meters, three meters, right? And I would sleep with my, with the covers over my head.

and she would grab my nose, and I would grab her hand, but I could never really grasp it, right? I would touch it, I felt something, and then I'd pull down the sheets, and she'd be asleep in her bed. And then I'd put my sheets back up, and boom, grabbing my nose again, and boom, I'm trying to grab the hand, I whip down the covers, nobody's there. And then she's sleeping.

But I'm laughing. I think this is a memory I still remember as a kid. And I just always felt like, what the hell's going on, right? Like, how is she so fast? And I kept thinking that to myself, how is she so fast? And I don't know if this is maybe when I'm older that I painted this in my memory. But for some reason, I have this strange memory of like a figure by the door, which is far away from my bed as well.

But I don't know why I had that thought, but it's there. But that memory is so strong of playing, like trying to catch the hand that's grabbing my nose whenever I put the covers over my head. Anyway, I didn't think too much of it. I got older. I just, like my sister is freaking fast, right? I remember as adults, I asked her, I said, you know, there's one thing that really fucked with me that I used to do. You used to always grab my nose with the covers over my head and you would move fast, right?

She's like, what the hell are you talking about? And I would explain to her and she goes, what are you talking about? No, I never did that. I was like, come on, stop fucking around. She's like, I never did that. Do you think she was fucking with you or do you think she's being honest? I believe her. I believe her. There's no reason for her to lie. And plus, honestly, there's no way. Especially after all this time. There's no way she can go back to the bed with a blanket back over her in such, literally, I'll just do the action. I know it's audio, but literally it's like this.

You know what I mean? Like, I whip the bed sheet down really quickly, and it's empty. And it's emptiness, nothing. Weird. Just weird. But that memory is strong. And, like, it's not like a dream. You remember this clear as day. No, I thought it was... Like, something was grabbing your nose? Yeah, I thought she was playing with me. Was it just one night, or was it, like, it was reoccurring? It was, like, all the time? Not reoccurring, but it definitely happened more than once. Weird, right? Yeah, weird. Weird.

Yeah, that's creepy too. It's funny, you mentioned the figure by the door. And I'm probably guessing this might be pretty common. Because when I was little, I also saw a figure at the door once. Yeah, I think it's pretty common. Yeah, figure at the door. But I was also running a high fever. So, you know, who knows, right? And because I saw the figure was at the door opening and closing the door.

Like teasing me. Yeah, like teasing me. Like, oh, you can't get out of this room. Like, oh, you can't get out of this room. And then my mom found me in the room standing up on my bed alone in the dark crying. Yeah, that night. But I was running a high fever. So, you know, who knows? Okay. Okay.

My friend. Same thing. Friend, secondhand, you know, who knows, right? I totally get it. It's not as trustworthy. But if you believe me, this is a very close friend of mine. You actually met him once. He was at the wedding. Chris. He is not the pranky, joking, lying type. So we both went to Gettysburg College together. That's how I met him.

And if you know anything about Gettysburg, Gettysburg is the site of one of the bloodiest battles in the American Civil War. And the school, Gettysburg College, famously is known to have a lot of ghost stories, like hauntings. But you chop that up into just lore and just like, you know, things that pop up and it's like publicity for the school, right? Whatever.

So we knew this because some of the buildings on campus are really, really old, are Civil War era or pre-Civil War era buildings. One of the buildings that has been converted for classrooms is known as it was a former infirmary for wounded soldiers. That's what it was used as during the battle.

So a lot of soldiers suffered and died in this building. So immediately already, okay, so you already have that going in. Maybe your mind's playing tricks on you. I get all that. My friend is working on a project in that building one night, late at night. The building is mostly empty. It's dark. He has his station, his light on his station is on, but the hallway lights are kind of off because it's like the building is mostly empty now it's dark. It

except for a few lights in the building, like emergency exits, things like that. And he turns around. He swears that he sees a Confederate uniform walking across the doorway. Now, this is kind of whatever, haha, okay, whatever. It's a story. He probably just saw something. Sure, maybe it wasn't really real, but what freaked me out the most was his reaction.

I don't know any of this is going on. I'm in my dorm room one night, that night, all of a sudden in the middle of the night. And this guy, he's not like a coward. He has pride. All of a sudden in my dorm room in the middle of the night, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang, bang on the door. And I wake up and I open the door and he is like pale white. He looks terrified. And

And as soon as I opened the door, he runs into my room. He's just frantic, pacing back and forth. He lights up a cigarette. He's like, he can't calm down. And I'm like, what? What the fuck? What's going on? And eventually he tells me this story. I don't, obviously I'm not there. I didn't see it. All I'm saying is based off of his reaction, I believe he believes he saw that. Whether it was real is a different story, but I believe that he believed he saw that.

And I asked him like, how did you get out? He's like, the moment he saw that he waited, like he was like frozen for a minute and then he forced himself to move.

And basically he just left all his shit there and started sprinting out of the hallway because it's like to exit the building, you still have to like go downstairs, go through, like run through the hallways. And he was just sprinting, trying not to look at anything, but just forward and just sprinting blindly out the exit, down the stairs, eventually out of the building. Creepy. Yeah.

But to like, for something to scare you that much, like you have to have believed you really saw something. It wouldn't just be like, oh, I thought I saw a little something. Like it would have to be like so clear to you that you saw it. You know what I mean? So creepy shit. Yeah. Yeah. Life has a lot of weird shit, huh?

I feel like this episode is turning down that path, right? So... Yeah, honestly, I didn't... I don't know. UFOs, not ghost stories. Like, we're... And we're trying to, like, promise our listeners, like, we'll do better, guys. You guys are going to get better content. And this is what we're leading with? Come on. I'm sorry. Fuck it. Yeah. So...

I raised this question. I thought that many people have experienced this before, but I raised this to a table of about eight or nine people sharing an experience I had multiple times, and not one person said they've had it. But I've looked online, and it's a common thing. So let me ask you if you ever had it. Have you ever been woken up to three loud knocks? Like that? Yeah. Could be faster, but three loud knocks. No. Okay. No.

Yeah, I've had it a couple of times. It's scary, man. Because for me, it's usually faster. It's usually like that kind of speed. And it sounds like literally right out from the door or front door. It sounds like a door. But no one's there. And it's always when I'm asleep. So it doesn't make sense for me to believe that it really happened if no one is there. I come to think, well, it happened in my dream and it woke me up.

because it happened in the dream. But I tell you, it really does feel like reality. Just like if I was sleeping in a room and if something dropped or something, it would wake me up. That's the feeling. Of a sudden noise happening in the room, you wake up, you get startled. You hear it so realistically, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So I looked it up. The explanations are pretty weird, random. Like people say, oh, that means somebody's about to die or like somebody's stupid, like that type of shit. No real explanation, but people hear it.

three knocks i i can i can see that i can see how that could be like a relatively common occurrence is it similar to the the feeling of like you're falling you're in free fall and then you wake up all of a sudden you know like that feeling is very real like you feel just as if you literally are falling and then you wake up but you're not falling like that feeling is just as real as hearing right when you when you when that happens

Or the one where you wake up and you're paralyzed? Sleep paralysis. Yes. Oh, I was very into sleep paralysis for a period of time. Oh, that's happened to me more times than I care to remember. Let's talk a little bit about sleep paralysis. That's the most frightening thing. All the time.

So let me quickly share. Well, first of all, let's talk about what sleep paralysis is. I fucking hate it. Sleep paralysis is when you wake up and you can't move your body, but mentally you're awake, but physically you cannot move. Usually it's accompanied by a tone or some sort of like harmony, harmonic sound, but

And also images of demonic figures or... Or someone sitting on your chest. Yeah, someone sitting on your chest. Or someone sitting at the foot of the bed. Yeah, yeah. It's usually... And that's a common thing that people see and experience. And it's called sleep paralysis. The scientific term, I guess you can call it. It's sleep paralysis.

And it's basically when you wake up in the middle of deep and conscious consciousness. Yeah, so the scientific explanation for it is like you're not actually fully awake yet. Yes, you're still in a dreamlike state. Hence, you're able to have illusions and all that stuff. So I remember the first time I had sleep paralysis in my life. I was 16 years old. I was doing a research paper on, funny enough, abductions, UFO abductions.

After reading all these books about alien abductions as a 16-year-old writing a research paper, I became paranoid. And the first time I got sleep paralysis, I thought I was getting abducted. I felt that for like 10 years of my life. I believed I was abducted.

So basically, I was asleep. Next thing you know, I felt like it was a bright light or something like that. But it wasn't clear. I couldn't move. I yelled. Nothing came out of my mouth. I remember looking at the clock before this happened, like right before I fell asleep. It was like 12 o'clock.

I couldn't move. I was facing the wall and I'm just, I just staring at a white wall and I couldn't move. I'm like, three, two, one, turn around, turn around, three, two, one, turn around. And I couldn't turn. I'm like, fucking yell. I'm so scared. And all, all, all that came out vividly. I remember is like, that's all that could come out. Right. It's like this, that's all that could come out. And it's like, I'm like, fuck. And I'm like, I'm going to use all my might. And literally after maybe like the third time of using all my might, right.

Yes You just get You just all of a sudden It comes out And you wake up You wake up Yeah And I even remember I was like Should I even scream Because I don't want to wake up my mom If I'm really getting abducted I'll just get abducted Like What? I don't want to get them involved What?

That's what went through my mind. What? Yeah. Because I honestly thought I was getting abducted. I don't want to wake anyone up. I don't want to bother anybody with my abduction. Yeah, seriously. That's what I thought. And because I was doing all the research, research says that you won't remember it. You don't remember the abduction. So I was kind of placated. I was like, just get over with. Just get it over with. Stay calm. Just do the probing. Exactly. You'll wake up.

It'll be all over. And then literally when I woke up, I looked at the clock. It was like 2.30, 3 o'clock. I was like, damn, the abduction took two, three hours. Wow. Yeah, I never, for me, I've had sleep paralysis many times in my life. Every single time, it's awful.

But never once was it for me an alien abduction thing. It's always someone is right next to me or at least like sitting on my bed and I don't know who this person is and I can't move and I can't make out. You can't see who it is, right? No, no, exactly. It's like a figure. You just feel something. Yeah, exactly. You feel, you know to your bones that there's something there, that there's a person or something right there, right next to you.

And you don't know, you can't move. And you want to scream out for help, but you can't scream. And you try. Like as hard as you can. Nothing. Like literally nothing. Yeah.

Until finally, ah, right? So when I was a kid, that happened to me a few times. But even as an adult, like in the recent years, it's also happened to me. It happens sometimes. So, you know, I sleep with my wife and she's heard me. She's heard it a couple of times, right? She's heard me just like scream.

scream in the middle of the night and I had to explain to her what happened you know yeah it's awful a lot of people go through that yeah as an adult I've had it I would say around in total 10 to 15 times 15 times I would say a lot of times we're minor

where you just feel fear because fear usually happens together with sleep paralysis. You just feel scared, right? Possibly because you just can't move. I got to the point now where if I'm in sleep paralysis, I know what's happening. I'm not scared. I'm just like, yeah, I'm just like, damn, fucking sleep paralysis. And it's almost like lucid dreaming where I feel like I'm in control, right? Yes, I can't move. I'll be like, oh, I can't move.

all right fuck it what's gonna be this time you know like wow yeah weird that no every time for me it's just it's still scary but it's in a state of like fright it's still scary but i know what's going on it's it's not it's not because because usually when you have when you're in that state of fright it's it's because you feel like what the hell's going on right yeah yeah but i feel like if i'm a when i'm aware of the sleep paralysis happening

I'm still scared. My heart's beating fast and it's freaky. And I'd be like, don't look at the door. Don't look at the... I remember like, don't look at the door. Something's there. Fuck it. Oh, God. It was like one of those...

That was my reaction. I wish, it's brand new to me every single time. Every single time is like the first time. I forget that it's like, because you don't prepare for it. You just wake up in a state of fear already. It's not like you wake up and you're like, oh, what's going on? Let me be afraid now. No, when you wake up, it's already in a state of fear. And it's that feeling of, I know to my bones that there's something right next to me. Yeah, I'm not alone. Yeah, I'm not alone here.

There's something that shouldn't be here that's there.

And so every time it gets me. I'm not like rationalizing it. I'm not in that state. - Let's put a couple of things together here. Okay, so on one, from a scientific perspective, I believe you're more susceptible to sleep paralysis if you are physically tired. You are doing something that physically made you really tired, but mentally you're still pretty fresh. So when you go to sleep, that's why your body just cannot wake up together with your brain because physically you're still recovering.

So that's one of the scientific explanations that I've heard. Hence, your brain is playing out all this fear and all these imaginations, hallucinations happening, etc.,

what if you really are not alone? Like what if in that moment, dimensionally speaking, you're not alone? And I only say this because when speaking about ayahuasca or other type of mind-altering drugs, one tends to see similar type of figures or creatures, beings,

that are common so you've read so i've read but you wouldn't know this i don't personally know but from what i've read and i've heard other interviews people speak about seeing certain type of beings yeah i've read that too yeah yeah and and i find that really strange like why do many people from that don't know each other speak about something that is similar in

in terms of talking to conscious beings or interacting with something that's alive yeah no i i get that and it's tempting to want to go down that path of like oh we're all connecting to this like other dimensions but what i'm trying to say it may not be maybe that's just that that's only the vocabulary that i have you know i'm saying i know but we're limited in vocabulary but because i'm playing devil's i want to play devil's advocate wouldn't the

Wouldn't the far simpler explanation to that be most people, our minds, you know, humans, our minds all work in pretty much the same way. And when we take certain substances, it alters our mind or our consciousness in that same way. So we will tend to see similar things, have similar experiences. For example, if you're smoking pot, most people have a pretty similar experience feeling that

Most people get the munchies, they get, you know, snacky and hungry, right? Like all these things are very common symptoms because it affects your body in that same way, right? Like, so when you're talking about maybe psychedelics, maybe the same thing is happening. It's just that it's just affecting us. It's causing you to have certain type of reactions, right?

to see certain type of beings or whatever. Yeah, because our brains are pretty much all the same anyway, right? So it's just the same kind of thing. So it shouldn't be a surprise that people are reporting similar experiences. Look at you trying to clean yourself up from your previous conspiracy theory talking motherfucker.

Yeah, I'm surprised I'm the one coming from that angle. No, no, I'm just saying, like, let's look at all sides, right? An open mind. That's what I'm saying, right? Wouldn't that be also an explanation? Yeah, but my explanation kind of works too if you want to go on the other side. Sure, yeah. I mean, I would much rather your explanation be the real explanation. I don't know. That's a lot more fun. Is it fun, though?

What about Deja Vu? Do you still get Deja Vu? Not that much. I had Deja Vu last night. Last night? Yes, last night. Huh? Yeah. You had Deja Vu last night? Last night. You had Deja Vu last night? Shut the fuck up.

Took you a while to catch on. All right, go ahead. No, no, I didn't even last night. I was watching, have you seen The Whale with Brendan Fraser? I have not. I would have to say it was very hard to watch for me. Okay. Do you know the premise of The Whale at all? Is he a teacher or something? Yeah, but that's like not the main. He's really overweight? Yeah, he's like. He has an eating problem. Morbally obese. He's like about to die, obese. And he has an eating problem, but it's like spurred on. It's caused by a lot of other emotional things.

And so it's really hard to watch because it's like this self-destruction that you just can't stop. It's disgusting. And so it's like, it really resonated with me because, and I don't know how we're even getting to this topic, but you know, I've had my issues with like eating disorder. I would actually classify it as an eating disorder. 100% you have an eating disorder. Yeah. Everything he was doing, I'm like, I do that.

Now, I'm not to that level where in the movie, but his behaviors, absolutely. I'm like, I do that. Oh, I gotta watch it now. I'm gonna watch it with the lens of watching Justin. Oh, you will totally be like, yup. Yup. Oh, shit. Yeah, you will totally be. Oh, I gotta watch it now. Like he orders pizza, but he orders two pies for himself. And like, you can see like every time he sees the food, you can see like he knows like he shouldn't be doing that. But he just can't control himself.

And he's disgusted by himself. It's like all these feelings I can relate to. All right, I got to watch it. And he's like alone. He almost eats alone because he's ashamed to be seen by other people. And so it's like all these things. I'm like, yes, that's exactly how I feel. That's why I'm glad I've been back on a workout routine now. So let's get to the deja vu. What's the deja vu? No, no, the deja vu, that's not a fun story. The deja vu was just a line in the movie

And I'm like, I've been here. My deja vu isn't necessarily like, oh, I've seen this before. My deja vu is not that I've seen the same thing, but I'm experiencing, I've experienced this exact moment. It wasn't a previous moment. It wasn't another moment that just happened to be exactly the same as this moment. No, this moment I'm having, not just what I'm hearing, what I'm seeing, what I'm feeling, but

my environment, everything around me is telling me, no, it's this moment I've experienced. It wasn't another moment that was similar to this moment. No, it was this moment. You've either dreamt it before, you felt it before, somehow it's in your mind. And I can't pinpoint where it's from. I just know that like, yes, it's like reliving an old memory. It's like, yeah, oh, wow, this is

exact moment. For some reason, I knew about this moment and everything is kind of falling into place for those few seconds exactly how it should. That's my type of deja vu. I feel like I've experienced that before. Not recently though. It's been a while. I wonder what that is. Now I'm going to kind of write what you were saying before. It's almost like your brain...

is sending certain type of signals and maybe there's like, it got routed wrong where it hits or triggers this familiarity section of your brain or something where it's like, ooh, it tickled it. I've been here before. Meanwhile, it's just a misfire. Maybe. That would make sense. Otherwise, why would we live in multi-dimensions? No, my theory has always been that maybe our lives are mapped out or predestined, right? The idea of fate and destiny. Like,

All Chinese. I don't think that's uniquely Chinese. I think that idea exists worldwide. It's the idea that like we are living a predetermined life, right? That seems random, but maybe it's not. And maybe our lives unfold exactly according to some sort of higher script, right?

What we're seeing in these deja vu moments is just some sort of glitch in that system where we caught somehow that moment before. And now we've just arrived there. It's like some sort of delay effect. I don't know. That's always kind of like been where my mind goes to when I experience the deja vu. I'm trying to think of other, I mean, recently I've been having a lot of weird conversations. I feel like we're already on this tip. Not weirder than this one, right? Okay.

Okay. Since we're already going down this fucking... Yeah, let's just go all out. Let me just take off my shirt. Hold on. Let's just lose all our listeners. Let's just fuck it. Yeah, let's not just lose half our subscribers. Let's just lose all of them now. Yeah, I have a handful of marbles in my hand right now. Let's just throw that shit away.

Yeah, I was having this conversation recently. These type of conversations, sharing ghost stories, sharing weird, weird stories that are unexplainable. I think this is all stemming from the recent hearings with UFOs, which causes people to talk about

about mysteries and whether it's mysteries of the mind or mysteries of the world i feel like all your things always stem from some sort of ufo related research right because then you see your sleep paralysis started because like you're researching like alien abductions yeah like it's like it's always from ufos and aliens i don't know for you it's fate it's predestined okay so i was having dinner with a friend who i will bring on the show um when she comes back to she

Shanghai. Very interesting woman. She was telling me her stories firsthand. And let me tell you, so we were sharing our own stories and I have plenty that I haven't shared yet. But basically she was telling us, telling me a story that she experienced firsthand in Taiwan. And she said that she's willing to come to the show to actually bring the recording and talk about it. I'm alluding to what I'm about to say. So I'll tease it for that future episode.

She said that she met some type of hypnotherapist. And long story short, I don't want to give away the whole thing, but long story short, it was about speaking to her past lives, like past life personas, and being able to reach those people. And apparently that they're all still part of you, your past life selves, like the memories or the histories or whatever is still within you in the soul. That's inescapable. That's apparently the, I guess, the crux of this type of therapy.

and you're supposed to put together a number of questions to ask yourself or to ask your former self to find answers to your life now and apparently she put together all these questions she went under which happened in an instant and she doesn't remember too much about it but the whole session was recorded so there's proof and apparently that's creepy right she was answering these questions and as another persona and this other persona just came out of nowhere it

It was her. But even the cadence of talking, the laughter, like she would laugh. Nothing like the way she laughed. She said that she laughed at a question. She was like, ah-ha.

But she never laughs like that. Like in person, she doesn't laugh like that. It's a whole different personality. A whole different personality. And she was saying that her voice was a bit higher than normal and much more floaty than normal. Meanwhile, she talks very like blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, you know? So it was really strange listening to this. And I was like, damn, that's really weird. And she's like, yeah, I didn't believe it until I listened to the recording. And then I'm like, who the hell is that? Who the hell is that?

and i was like wow that's that's crazy and she's like she said that she would she asked you know would you share would you share it on the show or something like that she was yeah yeah i'll bring it so i think that would be kind of interesting right she has like the full recording yeah yeah is it just an audio recording or is it yeah audio recording so i'll be i'd be interested to hear it and as long as she doesn't change her mind i don't know if she's listening but yeah i want to make that happen so that was one of the creepy weird things that that

that came out and it's about past lives. Yeah. Well, hypnosis is a whole different field, right? Like I've, I've never been hypnotized, but I've, you know, I've heard about people who have some people I know who have, it's crazy. Even going back to alien abductions, one of the famous alien abductions in American history, the guy was hypnotized and put under just like your, your friend here.

And you can see the reaction he had under hypnosis. Yeah, so there's a lot of weird stuff that I personally have been revisiting and just hearing other people's conversations. Just like you said, there has to be some truth. Whether or not the truth is as outstanding as we make it out,

may believe it is, but there is some truth to these odd and inexplainable experiences that we have. There has to be. Yeah. And I don't think it's a far, it's a stretch. It's a known fact that science has not really been able to explain what consciousness is. Exactly. Like that's not, I'm not, that's not an out there statement. Like it's like the scientific community is,

does not know this is like a fact, right? They don't know what consciousness is. They can't really measure it. That right there, I mean, that's a whole ocean of things we just don't know about. I remember growing up hearing this statistic of we only use 8% to 10% of our brain. Yeah.

Yeah. Whatever that means, I don't know what that means. I don't know how accurate 8% to 10% is. Is it still 8% to 10%? When I was growing up, it was that. But I believe, I've heard it recently, it was a higher number that we used more. Yeah. I think it's... Okay. Because...

I mean, that's like in the 80s. Yeah, people were dumber in the 80s. Well, research, a lot less research. Yeah. Or 80s and 90s. But anyway, what I wanted to talk about in terms of understanding consciousness or understanding the brain, one thing that's really interesting about that, we can relate it to the study of AI. In the way that AI programmers, especially the ones that are more in the forefront of

conversation these days, like LLMs, large language models. A lot of times they can't even explain why they are responding the way they are

or acting the way they are. People who don't know about this field would be like, well, you know, what did you program? What's the data that you programmed for them to formula, for them to answer your questions, blah, blah, blah. A lot of these experts come out and be like, look, the actual formula, the actual programming code is relatively small. But for some reason, the AI kind of goes off and it's unexplainable. And that's why there's a lot of people that are out there now waving a flag being like, yo, we don't...

we're entering a new frontier. Let's pump the brakes on this. Yeah, like we don't know what's going on. We can't even explain why they're acting the way they are acting and you're trying to keep pushing it. You know, this kind of stuff. Because they're relating it to human intelligence, the way the human brain works.

And you can break down the basic gist of how the brain works based off of the different regions of the brain and how they work together and what they focus on. What is creativity? What is intelligence really? You can't really put a finger on it actually. And that's what they're finding.

Even the idea of AI intelligence, if you keep pushing it to the level of AGI, artificial general intelligence, or even beyond, super intelligence, which is the top, right? What's the limit of that? There is no limit. So what does that even mean, no limit? We can't even grasp it because our computation is limited, that we can't even understand what that means. So I agree with you in the sense that, yes, we don't understand consciousness to the full extent of what it means, right?

We talk about all these weird things that happen to us, whether it's ghost stories or deja vu or speaking with people, yourself in a past life, interdimensional beings, things

They all could just be true. They all could be true. We just don't understand because we're so limited in what we can compute. Yeah, no, and exactly. The way you're even labeling it might not even be those things. It's just that the truth of the matter is we just don't know and understand what it is we're experiencing, right? Yeah, it totally could be. It reminds me of a saying Neil deGrasse Tyson said in a talk once, and he was like,

Trying to put into perspective intelligence and our human-centric idea and concept of intelligence that, oh, humans were highly intelligent beings. And look at, we created the internet, right? We build roads and infrastructure and businesses and we put satellites into space, right?

put a man on the moon, right? We're intelligent. But like, we don't actually have any reference and context and perspective on intelligence because we are the only things that we know to be intelligent in

To the level of our intelligence. In that sense, right? Because only thing we have to compare to is other life forms on Earth. So that's an extremely small sample size to really kind of on the graph or on the spectrum of where you land on the intelligence scale. We don't know.

But what we do know is that our DNA is only 1% different than that of a chimp. But we see ourselves as highly more intelligent than a chimp. Chimps haven't invented all these things that we've invented, right? And even the most intelligent chimp

has the intelligence of a fifth grader or a fourth grader, something to that. Like basically a toddler, a human toddler. Now, what is 1% increase from humans? From us, yeah. What would that look like? What's 10X? Yeah. What's 10%? Well, no, but let's just take 1%. That means the most intelligent human being would be just as smart as the toddler of those beings, you know, whatever that is.

And so it opens up this whole vast universe of things that we cannot possibly think we know. And everything we have known, and I'm not trying to take away from human knowledge and scientific accomplishment, like we know a lot.

But, and I've said this before, it's like looking out into space and you see that there's a lot of stuff in space, right? There's a lot of stars. There's a lot of planets. There's a lot of comets, a lot of asteroids, a lot of gas, all these things. Sure.

But if you know anything about space, the empty space between all these things is far, far, far, far greater than the matter that exists in the universe. Just like the idea if you shoot something out into space, the probability of it actually hitting something like a planet or a star or something like that

is so, so small, it's almost like impossible. It's just empty space, most of it. And I think that's the same thing with our knowledge. We don't know so much more than we know. And so if we understand that fact, then we always have to make room for really an endless amount of possibilities for anything. And we can't really close ourselves off. Yeah. Right.

What I don't understand are the people that are so sure about what they know. There's a lot of people out there that are like that. There are a lot of people out there, yeah. I never understood that. I'm not saying, like, personally, I'm not saying that I'm on, I'm just going to be running around spewing my beliefs on interdimensionality and all that stuff. But just like you said, I'm open to the idea that I don't know anything. And we as humans have a lot of, live by a lot of fallacies and we're

We are very limited in our own computational power. We've already been surpassed by AI on many aspects, especially memory and recollection, which is a form of intelligence, right? People say creativity will be held by humans. Well...

Look at all the fun creative stuff that AI is generating. Creativity is a formula. It's just waiting to be cracked. And then what? I don't know. I feel like that's why we live in a very interesting time right now. I was very doom and gloom in the past few months. Oh, yeah. Justin can attest to that because he's always like, Harry, stop watching those stuff. Yeah.

Yeah, you've been very doom and gloom. Yeah. Well, are you not? Are you saying you're not anymore? I'm saying I'm less. I'm saying I'm...

Because you started working out. Yes. It does help. It really does help. Exercise is good for that. Exercise is very good. I'm not saying I'm not doom and gloom. I'm still holding on to using my own intuition plus being semi-realistic with the knowledge that I've gained about what has been happening around the world in terms of technological advancements.

And kind of predicting what that could lead to and trying to use that intuition and to maybe guide me and my family and my friends to make sure that we are not left behind or we're not...

As much knowledge as possible, right? Put towards that so that we don't get left behind and all that. So it's not really doom and gloom. It's more about knowing that we're approaching a lot of unknowns. A lot of unknowns. And just trying to be prepared. And trying to be prepared. That's what it is. I'm not riding on the bus of, that's it, end of humanity. This is the end of humanity. Some people say that. Some people say this is the beginning of the end. You were kind of like that a few months back.

you would walk into the studio and be like, "Nothing really matters. We're all about, everything's about to end."

I think I was watching a little too much of Eliezer Yudkowsky, who is one of the main doom and gloom AI specialists out there. He is very, basically, he's very intelligent. He's been on the forefront of warning people about what we're heading towards. And he basically says, that's it. The cat's out of the bag. Pandora's box is opened. The way human nature is combined with this uncontrollable force equals doom.

And even if that uncontrollable force is good, whatever that means, before it gets to the point where it is AGI and all-knowing, the bad humans may have access to that and fuck everything up.

So he's like, you can compute it with sort of like what Doctor Strange did in Avengers. Like millions and millions of different threads of possibilities that this world can head to. He's like, I can do that. I did that myself as well. And I don't see one that comes out where we survive. So it's just a weird time to live in. Especially if you listen to people like him. And there's others like him.

that are a bit more on the doom and gloom but there's also a lot of people that are positive they're saying that there's going to be a lot of good that comes out of it a lot of good we're going to enter a world a life of abundance but i don't know i i think the reason why i was doom and gloom to get to the point is that i am a bit pessimistic especially towards humans

understanding humans understanding that there are a lot of humans out there that are just bad forget about the reasons why but they are just bad and if they get control of these type of technologies before they get to the point where the technologies don't give a fuck about us puny humans it could be you know some bad stuff that happens yeah you just don't you just don't trust people

yeah with that kind of power right just understandable yeah i don't know i'm i don't know i'm not even trying to go down that whole ai rabbit hole i'm not i've never really been that captured by it even though i know it's a real thing it's something to be concerned about i don't i just think the point is for me the idea of we don't know so much more than we do know can be applied to everything everything like daily life

The way we see politics, the way we feel about certain things, the way we feel about certain races, certain countries, like whatever it is in our daily lives or on the headlines, like just know that we don't know way more than we do know. And I think going from that, if you have that kind of framework to think about things, it kind of forces yourself to stay open-minded more.

Stay a little more humble. Ask more questions maybe. Instead of having these like strong opinions and like moral judgments on things that we don't really understand. We don't. Yeah, I feel like that could be used in daily life as well. Just even with work and with friends, relationships. Everyone wants to feel like they know.

That's just human nature. We want to feel like, oh, we know what's up. I know what's right and wrong. I know the story, but we don't. Most of the time, we really, really don't. It's hard enough for us to understand ourselves, let alone, I don't know, something like geopolitics, right? So it's like, we just don't know. We don't know what's really going on. I like that.

Stay humble. Ask questions. Be open-minded. I think that's a good general rule of thumb, just in life. Yeah, and it's nothing new. We're not dropping gems here. It's just like everyone kind of knows this, but we forget about it. Yeah, exactly. You have to remind yourself. Yeah.

That's part of the reason why I like recording because I feel like I am reminded of certain things. Especially when we're tossing out gems. It reminds me to refocus on certain things or certain mental states. It's tough though, right? Because if I have to be honest, it's tough to stay in that framework of being humble. Ask more questions. You don't know shit. It's tough when you feel that...

Most people around you are like very assertive in their opinions, in their thoughts, the fact that they feel like, okay, I know. And it's hard because if you're the only one that's been like, okay, let me humble myself. I don't know. Then it's like, it's like the saying, like good guys finish last, right? Like you'll never, if you don't compete and you don't like grow some teeth, you're

Then you'll just get eaten alive. And I feel like intellectually, that is almost also true. If you're in a sea of sharks that feel like they know everything and they're so assertive about their opinions, for you to be the humble one, you almost lose your voice.

In this day and age, as fucked up as that is, like, I'm not saying I agree with it. I'm just saying, I feel in this modern times that we're living in, the loudest person wins. And the loudest person is often not the right thing, right? So I was like, but it just seems like the loudest voice always wins out.

The strongest, most assertive, most confident, most eloquently put voice with a microphone. They're the ones that gets through. The passive person doesn't. That's what scares me. But why does asking questions, being humble, being open-minded, why does that equal passive? Maybe it doesn't. It just feels like it comes off as passive because you're not dictating. You're not lecturing. You're not... I hate all those things, right? But it's like...

I don't know. It just feels like the people that get the most playtime are the ones that feel like they have a position, a strong position, and they are speaking it with a certain force and belief and decibel level to get airtime or to get views, to get clicks, to get people interested. And almost the humble intellectual, it's like an uproar.

uphill battle. I'm not saying it's impossible. It just seems like it's an uphill battle. I thought you were going to say, I'm not saying I'm a humble intellectual. Okay, just to be clear, I'm not talking about myself. I'm just talking about, I just feel like that's the landscape of things. I think it's the nature of the business of what you're trying to do. I think you can incorporate that humble, open-minded, ask questions into, okay, let's talk about media clicks. Yes, you have these people that are out there that are in your face. Listen to me. I know what it is. Boom, boom, boom.

You have people out there that are very... Look at the Mr. Boring that you always say, Lex Friedman. His whole podcast is based off of curiosity and he's very slow. His podcasts are very slow but informative.

And his responses are always thought out. He responds slowly because he thinks about what is said and let it really sink in and resonate before he responds. He's very popular. His show is very popular. Oh, yeah, he's very popular. He has a great podcast. He's one of the top podcasts. Yes. But if we break it down, are people tuning in to really listen to him or listen to his guests? I don't know. I think a lot of people listen to him now. Yeah? Yeah.

So anyway, regardless, what I'm trying to get at is there is no definite answer. No. Let me rephrase this. There is no definite, I guess, reason for success when it comes to being assertive or being the loudest voice, highest decibel, as you said it. That does not equal success. No, no. Or let me rephrase that. That is not the only equal sign to success. So...

You just choose the right way. It doesn't mean that, like I said, just because you are more humble, you ask questions, open-minded, doesn't make you passive, doesn't make you weak. Not at all. Justin, you're not weak. I'm here to tell you right now. Don't think you're weak. I'm not talking about myself, you motherfucker. Yeah, I don't know. Has Eric responded at all? What the fuck? He hasn't responded.

No, it's got me worried now. And I never worry about Eric. He's the last person I worry about. But like, I don't know. What do you think? What do you think is, do you think he's, anything's going on? I don't know. All right, well, let's try to find out. And I guess we'll end it here. What do you think? Yeah. This is a weird one. Yeah, I don't know. I don't know. When it's me and you, man, we just, we go off the rails. We go off the rails. But let's keep doing this, man. So every week...

We're doing this. Yes. We're kind of pretty much set up now, and we're back in action. We say this all the time. Yes. Hold on. Hold on. I just remember something. How the hell did we go down this path?

I wanted to talk about the things that we're doing with Xiao Hong Su, some of the topics that I feel like that we can keep expanding on, some of the things that I would like to talk more about and get more in depth in terms of our identity and our past and even things about now, current.

current ways of thinking, especially when it comes to being a Chinese American personally here. And then we come to fucking UFOs and multidimensionality. Well, that's far more interesting than what you were about to say. I know, I know. I know, I know. Maybe it worked out for the better. All right, later. I'm Justin. I am Howie. All right. Be good. Be well. Peace.